


Victorious

by alphonseelric22



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 04:33:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8564209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphonseelric22/pseuds/alphonseelric22
Summary: Cowards count no victories so maybe Roy can be brave this one time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This one kind of got away from me. I've been throwing around the idea of a fic with Ed strolling over to Roy after Al is restored and just grabbing him and kissing the hell out of him and I finally found some way to use it. It ended up in one a bit differently than I had originally pictured but that does happen sometimes :P Regardless, I hope you enjoy this one.
> 
> Also, feel free to let me know if I've made any errors. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened XD

Roy's been doomed from the beginning hasn't he? He shouldn't have given the feelings voice in his mind because it made them much more tangible and if they became tangible they could lead to something real. They could be something entirely too real for Roy Mustang to handle. It's not that he doesn't want this. He wants this so badly it scares him sometimes. He wants it so fiercely that it burns within every fiber of his being. He wants it so desperately that he'd lower himself more than ever before to make it work. That's the problem though. Should he be willing to utterly destroy himself for the hope of one good (great, amazing, _magnificient_ ) thing? Should he be so willing to throw it down at his feet and hope it's enough?

 

He'd love to say it started after the promised day, when the dust settled and he could still only hear what was going on. There was cheering and then quiet so deafening he was terrified Ed had actually died, so much so that he just had to ask Riza. There was shouting, from Ed no less, and then a declaration before the crackling in the air and the smell of ozone. He wished he could see so hard that it hurt because hearing just wasn't enough.

 

He'd gathered, from what his other senses could grasp and what Riza had told him afterward, that Alphonse had done something terribly rash, far more impulsive than was his wont, and that Ed had responded in kind. He wasn't entirely sure until later when Ed was kind enough to give him the full run down of events he'd only born auditory witness to. Ed didn't have his alchemy anymore and the way it stung startled even Roy. His was a great talent and for the world to lose that was almost the greatest tragedy Roy could think of. The worst, of course, would be losing the Elric brothers but that one didn't even deserve a shred of thought of any length.

 

At the time, he'd thought someone might've been coming to usher him to the hospital, to which he was going to insist he be left until the others were attended to. He'd even intended to argue at length that he'd been relatively unharmed and that, therefore, he was lowest on the list of priorities. He'd been grabbed by the lapels of his uniform coat and hauled up into a kiss so hard his bottom lip hurt, so bright it would have blinded him once more, and so warm his entire body heated at the contact. He'd distantly registered gasps as he was lowered back down but no less confused.

 

“I figure,” Roy had heard Ed say, while his heart did something that had to be a hindrance to his life, “since the top of the list is checked off I could go for number two now.”

 

Roy licked his lips and _god_ he could still taste him there and that set his head to spinning even faster. “And what list might you be referring to?”

 

“List of shit I want. Getting Al back was the first one. Guess what the second one is,” he said and even blind Roy could see the grin spreading on his face.

 

He lifted his hand, had a moment where he was incredibly lost as he searched for his target, then a feeling of triumph as his palm touched to Ed's cheek. He hoped his gaze was somewhere around Ed's eyes but even being close would be good enough. He stroked his thumb over Ed's cheekbone and said “I'd rather prefer you kiss me again.”

 

Ed had obliged until Roy heard a clearing of someone's throat that could be characterized as delicate and Ed's weight left him entirely.

 

“Might I suggest relocating to a more private venue, sir?”

 

Ed snorted and Roy really wished he could see that because it had to be ridiculously precious. “I believe we've just been told to get a room,” Roy said.

 

“That was the gist, sir.”

 

Roy would love to, but couldn't because lying about this felt too wrong, say that it started with the blind optimism of Edward Elric kissing him several minutes after the averted apocalypse. He'd love to say it started down in the tunnels, with the wretch named Envy within his grasp, with Ed carefully walking him from the precipice. He was returning the favor and Roy could see that but he was too enraged to care. Sure, Ed had lost, more than most and in such a short amount of time, but god if Roy didn't feel like this loss trumped all of them. He'd loved Maes Hughes for the better part of his adult life, no matter how infuriating the man could be at times, and he was torn away by nothing more than a slug and he'd just wanted to slaughter the damn thing so badly he couldn't think clearly.

 

Once his mind was clearer he'd thought it through. This wasn't a competition of whose loss counted for more in the grand scheme of things. Just because it had driven him to madness didn't mean it was more significant than any loss Ed had ever suffered. Besides all of that, Ed has lost Maes too. He wasn't alone in this pain, he wasn't the only feeling deeply cut. Ed had lost and tried to regain and lost again and it had been Roy, with the offer of power, with the offer of direction and a purpose, that had dragged Ed out of the pit so he could start toward regaining their bodies. Ed was doing him the same favor, picking his damaged ass off of the ground and setting him back in the right direction.

 

Once his mind was clearer he could see that and let it settle and warm in his chest.

 

Still, he knows better and he knows it started when Ed, fifteen years old and just back from a particularly nasty assignment, brushed into his office looking like death warmed over. It started when Ed handed him the report and their eyes locked and Roy saw the misery there that Ed would never speak of. It started when Roy thought, with an abruptness that completely stilled him, that he would do anything to make it better, that he'd protect him with everything he had if he could just grin again. It started when Roy realized that Ed was everything good in this world and everything right with it and maybe he could be a better man with that in his life.

 

In the years to follow, he'd fought with himself. He'd told himself it was just some misguided belief that he could ever be better or more than what he already was. He'd told himself that he'd only taint him, tarnish the brilliance and the shine with his fingerprints. He'd told himself that it would be spectacular for only a short while before it exploded in his face and he was left with the shrapnel piercing his chest. He'd told himself it would pass and he'd move on and continue to serve his country to the best of his ability. Come to think of it, he'd lied to himself a lot over the years.

 

If anything it had strengthened and cemented itself as a part of his being. Each step they took towards that final day, towards beating back the homunculus and taking their lives back for themselves, every single thing had only served to brighten Ed and make his determination that much more fierce. Roy is a coward and he's never made any claim to bravery where his own tender feelings are concerned and when Ed handed him even the slightest possibility of a future where they could be more, be more together... Roy took it and held it carefully in his hands and cradled it and treasured it. He had to be careful, had to take this one slow step at a time or he could destroy it and if he did he'd be destroying himself as well.

 

He has been told he has a tendency to be a bit melodramatic.

Ed had made a point of visiting his hospital room once a day to speak with him, make sure he was still sane (or as sane as he had been before), make sure he was okay. Ed had made sure he was going to be a part of Roy's life, that being easier said than done holding no bearing on the decision itself. Ed had also been dead set on being there when Roy's vision was returned, not that he was going to argue with him on the subject. He'd been without sight for not more than a few days but it'd felt like a lifetime since the light had met his eyes and it'd made a difference. It'd felt like a lifetime since there were faces to the voices.

 

His first sight was that breathtaking grin and fall of golden hair and his heart stuttered in his chest so hard he couldn't breathe for a few moments. Then he had Ed in his arms and his team (including the newly restored Havoc) giving their approval if their smiles were anything to go by. Well, that made this all a lot easier to explain to them. Roy had expected Ed to stop visiting for a while or at least visit more sparingly now that Roy was whole again. After all, he no longer felt so lost, so alone in the darkness and he'd suspected that that had been Ed's main motivation for the frequent visits.

 

He should have learned long ago to never expect anything where Edward Elric was concerned.

 

If anything, he visited more, so much so that Roy was finding it impossible to get any work done. He'd since relocated back to headquarters to get a head start on rebuilding the country and he'd fully expected Ed to stick around the hospital more until Alphonse was well enough to leave. Instead, he was dividing his time between the two and becoming a permanent fixture in the office. Most days, they left the doors to the inner office open and shared whatever conversation struck Ed as the most interesting at the time.

 

There were, however, those days where the doors would close and Ed would press into Roy as they kissed and he'd steal the breath of the older man. Where had he learned to kiss this well? Where had he learned to use his tongue like that? He found himself caring less about where Ed gained the knowledge and more about him doing it more often. Roy had discovered that kissing Ed was one of the single greatest past times in the known universe. It also often left him in the terrible position of not being able to walk for thirty minutes afterward, especially after the time Ed had climbed into his lap and pulled his hair just hard enough to hurt and arouse all at once.

 

Roy had learned to appreciate every small moment, every kiss, every time the skin dimpled under the press of his fingers, every gasp, every arch of that beautiful spine, and even every time Ed called him a bastard. To others, it might have been an insult but it was a title he would wear proudly for the rest of his life because there was rarely a time when Ed intended it as such. It was his own special brand of affection and Roy would have it no other way.

 

He had also learned to dread the fights, the inevitable shift in mood that lead to bickering that jabbed just a little too hard at tender areas, the eventual build up of the unsaid things that lead to explosions. The smoke always left him choking and the door slamming behind Ed always left him pining and regretting. He'd tried, tried so hard to hold what they had gently but he was clumsy and his hands kept slipping and accidentally crushing it. When he was at his weakest, most vulnerable is when he always went more within himself, when he pushed everyone and everything outside away. It was a defensive tactic brought on from years of hurt and pain. It worked well for keeping those sore spots safe. It was terrible in terms of relations with others.

 

He'd once done it with Riza and snapped something insensitive and entirely unwarranted at her and he'd earned himself a hard slap on the cheek. If nothing else, it had least shocked himself out of the pity and self-loathing for long enough to be surprised. She had looked at him, eyes hard and expression entirely serious before she told him “I've known you for many years, sir. The least you could do is trust me.” It'd hurt him, as it always did, to know she'd ever thought he didn't but he knew she was right. He knew he couldn't go on acting like she didn't know his demons and still believed in him despite all he'd done. He couldn't on acting like she didn't actually care. This was Riza. So, he gave to her his complete and utter trust and when those moments came along again he let himself be broken and she'd pick up the pieces and give him the look that said she always would.

 

This is different. She's his friend and, although he may have ventured to think they could've been more, never would be anything else. Ed is... far too important for the risks. What if he sees all that Roy truly is and flees? What if it's too much to carry, too much to shoulder and he leaves? Roy is a coward in this and never has been anything else. So he hides and bites like a wounded dog and the chasm between them grows and grows until Roy can barely see Ed across it anymore. This is what he does. He finds cracks and digs in until they spread open because he can never have a good thing without utterly fucking it up.

 

“Do you want this or not?” Ed asks and Roy doesn't know how long he's been thinking over how this all started, how he started his own demise by loving Edward Elric in the first place. “I can't be alone in this, Roy. I fucking can't. I need you here too.”

 

Roy frowns and ignores the pang in his chest. “I am here,” he says.

 

“You know what I fucking meant,” Ed says. “Here. Not somewhere off in your fucking mind and acting like some hurt animal every time your fucking past comes back to make you feel like shit. Let me help with it.”

 

Roy takes a deep breath and he wants to let him but those parts of him are so dark and horrifying that even he hates to seem them. He wants to trust Ed with the worst of it, with the worst of him, but he can't risk losing this, losing them. “I can't ask you to do that, Ed.”

 

“Then what's the fucking point, Roy? Just tell me one damn thing, one thing. Do you want this or not? Because if you say no I'll walk out of that fucking door right now and leave.”

 

Roy considers the response but he knows there is only one. He can't lie, not about this or about them. Ed is too important, Ed is everything. He wants this with every fiber of his being but that seems to be the problem. He wants it so fiercely that he's terrified of breaking it apart with his own stupidity. “Yes. Of course I do, Ed. I-”

 

Ed grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him down into a rough kiss like the ground going out beneath his feet, like the world ending all over again. “Then trust me, alright? I know what it's like,” he says, letting his head fall to Roy's chest, “I know what it's like to think you don't deserve shit okay? I still think that some days and then Alphonse tells me to stop being a dumbass because there are people who care about me regardless of what I've done and I care about you Roy Mustang. You got that? I fucking care so just... let me in alright? I can't promise I won't be a dick sometimes but I can try. Isn't that enough?”

 

Roy breaths in and out, raises his hand to thread in Ed's hair, and presses his lips to the top of Ed's head. “Yes but I believe enough is understanding matters greatly. You are so much more than enough, Edward. You are so much more than anything I deserve.”

 

“Shut up,” Ed says weakly, trying to press his face against Roy's shirt harder.

 

“I will do no such thing.” Roy's other arm circles around Ed, bringing their bodies closer together while his hand that is still in Ed's hair starts scratching gently at his scalp. Let it be known that there is no greater sound than a gasp of pleasure from Ed's lips. “You are so much better than I am in so many ways that I am baffled that you choose to stay at all. I'm surprised that you have yet to see that you could do so much better than one damaged soldier but so damn thankful that you haven't. The lengths I would go to for even one more moment with you scares me in ways I didn't know I could be scared. I don't want to ruin this, Ed. I don't think I have enough left in me to withstand the aftermath.”

 

“You won't, dumbass. That's what I've been trying to tell you,” he says, pulling back to look up into Roy's eyes and the fire in Ed's blazes so bright that it burns. “No one has ever taken care of me and fucking loved me like you have. No one. So don't say someone else would be better because, for me, there's no one better than you, okay? Fuck, I sound like a fucking romance novel.”

 

Roy smiles and lowers his lips just below the shell of Ed's ear and kisses the skin there, delighting in the way Ed shivers from head to toe. “Mm, the parts with the fucking are often my favorite.”

 

“Oh yeah?” Ed asks.

 

“Yes.” He kisses his way down to Ed's clavicle and thanks whatever higher power there might be that this shirt rides low. “We could write our own passage now.”

 

“Oh shit,” Ed gasps, hips jerking hard against Roy's and Roy can't help the spread of the smirk. “M'no good at writing.”

 

“That hardly matters,” he says, biting just hard enough to elicit a hiss from Ed. “You're the best subject I've ever had the privilege to write about.”

 

“Such a smooth talker,” Ed says and the laugh chokes off into a groan as Roy sucks hard on his neck.

 

“You were right, by the way,” Roy says.

 

“Huh?”

 

Roy is feeling brave, emboldened by Ed's faith in him. What is it they say? Cowards count no victories and fortune favors the brave? He hopes those are true. “I do love you, far more than I ever expected I could love another person.” Roy doesn't say the words so much as release them, so much as finally let them be known and become a tangible thing in the air.

 

“Holy fucking shit,” Ed gasps and grabs him to press him against the wall and kiss himself. “Fucking fuck me before I go crazy.”

 

Roy can't possibly say no to that and obliges. In the minutes following he holds Ed close on the couch and breathes his scent deeply. He has to cherish every little moment and never take them for granted. God, he hopes he never ever takes this for granted.

 

Ed turns and throws his arm over Roy's side and press his face into his throat. “Y'know, I do too.”

 

“Do what, darling?”

 

“Don't call me that. Love you... I love you too.”

 

Roy smiles and holds him just a little tighter while he kisses his forehead. “I know and thank you.”

 

Roy can feel the grin against his skin and he decides not show he notices when Ed's arm hugs him a little closer. “You're welcome.”

 

“Shall I feed you?” he asks, hand absently running through Ed's hair.

 

Ed pulls back and looks up at him. “You fucking better.”

 

“I am better, because of you,” he says and kisses Ed's scrunched nose.

 

“Oh gross. Did all this shit just make you sappier? C'mon, food awaits.” Ed gets up from the couch and Roy feels he has no choice but to take Ed's outstretched hand and follow him to the kitchen. He can feel the promise of so much more around them and he's never felt safer in his entire life than he does in this moment. It's fitting that it's because of Edward Elric.

 

 

 


End file.
